“If anything happens,” Kenzo reassures me, “I’m here. Just stay close, and be careful.” He speaks calmly, but when our eyes meet there’s an urgency he can’t hide.
None of us can be sure of how long the diversion will work. Kenzo explained it to us earlier, once we’d found a safe place to hide from the King’s bird demons. A group of guards allied to us will leave the palace via the southeastern ramparts and take off on horseback, leaving the coast clear for us to move to the northwest part of the forest, from which we’ll head to the secret war-camp the Hannos have set up a few miles out in preparation for the siege on the palace. Still, it could be days or mere hours until the court knows we fooled them. Then what?
I brush a kiss to Aoki’s brow before leading Blue away from the small clearing. The clouds have begun to clear, and snatches of starlight wink down through the canopy. It fills the forest with flickering shadows, making me even more on edge as we wind through the trees. My eyes strain to pick out useful herbs from the sparse foliage on the ground. I’d rely on my nose were it not for the stench of blood. My clothes and skin are caked in it, scraps of my hair stuck to my cheeks with Aoki’s gore.
Blue tracks alongside me. “What are we looking for?”
“Mostly the same herbs I’ve been giving you,” I say, inspecting the roots of a tree. “Ginseng. Milk thistle. Anything to dull pain and protect from infection. If a wound like that turns septic…”
Blue either doesn’t sense my concern or chooses to ignore it. She snorts. “Very helpful, Nine, given I don’t know what in the gods any of those look like when they’re not in a mush and stinking up my leg. Not all of us work in some peasant herb shop.”
“Then why offer to help if you think this is beneath you?” I reply impatiently.
“Someone had to make sure you didn’t get the rest of us in even more trouble than you already have,” she shoots back with a scowl. But there’s a softer note that suggests I’m not the only one of us concerned about Aoki’s well-being.
“Our best bet here is yan hu suo,” I say. “They grow well in bamboo groves. Look for small bell-shaped flowers, blue or yellow, and thick vegetation. It’s their tubers we’re after.”
Blue grunts in acknowledgment. As she moves to search some bushes close by, I notice her limp is more pronounced than usual. After all this running, and her fall on it earlier, it’s a wonder she’s moving as well as she is.
“How’s your leg?” I ask.
“Fine,” she replies brusquely, and I don’t press her. Still, when I come across a bunch of wild poppies ten minutes later—a good enough substitute for yan hu suo—I pick a few extra.
We’re hunting for more herbs when Blue says, “What was that about, an escape route you should have taken before?”
I stiffen. “The rebels within the palace. They had a plan to get me out.”
“And you didn’t take it?”
“It wasn’t the right time.”
She makes a scathing sound. “Unbelievable.”
I glower. “What?”
“You had a way out, and you didn’t take it. How dense are you, Nine?”
“You’d have been punished if I had,” I say heatedly. “The King probably would have killed you.”
“So what? What has living ever done for me? Gods, my life is just so fantastic, who wouldn’t want to be me?”
The hostility in her voice stings me. “Blue…”
But she turns her back on me, making it clear the conversation is over.
When we head back, having gathered enough herbs, I say gently, “I’m sorry about your father.”
She doesn’t reply—and I don’t expect her to. Yet as we approach the clearing, Blue’s words come sudden and fast. “I shouldn’t be surprised by now. It’s ridiculous. Clinging on to nothing, all this time. I mean, gods, after everything…” She makes an angry, animal sound at the back of her throat before releasing a shuddering breath, her voice withering to a whisper. “Why am I still surprised?”
“Because,” I say, “when you love someone, you can’t help but hope for the best.”
“Even when all they show you is their worst?”
“Because they have shown you more than their worst. Because you know they can be better. Because you’ve seen it. You’ve loved them for it.”
Blue’s dark, suspicious eyes flick my way. “What happened between you and lover-girl? You’ve not even spoken her name. Not that I care, of course,” she hastens to add. “I’m just surprised you didn’t spend every waking moment gushing about her.”
This time, it’s my turn to ignore her.
Once we’re back with the others, I tend to Aoki, creating a poultice for her wounds and crushing some poppy seeds on her tongue for her pain. Afterward, I touch up the minor scrapes Kenzo and the girls picked up in our escape. The hours pass with no signs of trouble, and as the tension drains, the twins fall asleep. It feels almost safe now amid the softly rustling bamboo and the dancing light of the stars painting lullabies across the earth. After the night’s events, exhaustion must be hitting the girls hard.
Earlier this evening, they were told they were going to die.
Then one of them did. And another isn’t far behind.
His watchful eyes on the trees, Kenzo cradles Aoki to him to keep her warm. She still hasn’t stirred. I check her pulse often, scared she might slip away without us knowing. Half of me wishes she’ll remain unconscious so she’s spared the pain that’ll undoubtedly storm her the second she wakes, while the other part of me wishes she’d open her eyes, just so I know she’s still in there. That she still has energy to fight.
“Rest,” Kenzo murmurs to me.
The dark is ebbing, sunrise fast approaching. Zhen and Zhin snore lightly. At the edge of the group, Blue is curled tight, facing away from us so I can’t tell if she’s sleeping, though after what she learned about her father earlier, I doubt it.
“I’m not tired,” I tell Kenzo.
“Of course you are. Lei, we’ll have to move soon. You might not get another chance to rest.”
“I don’t need rest,” I snap. I blow out a breath. “Every time I shut my eyes I see Chenna and Mistress Azami. The look on their faces as they died. How they died to save us. Sleeping won’t bring me peace.”
“And torturing yourself with thoughts of them will?”
“It will give me strength.” I meet his astute wolf eyes. “With what’s to come, I need that far more than peace.”
He tips his head, assessing me fondly. “How far you’ve come from the girl I once trained with in the forest. That girl barely knew how to wield a knife. Now look at you. You cut down demons with the confidence of a seasoned warrior. You saved the lives of four of your friends. Wren would be so proud.”
Despite their warm delivery, the words bury into me like daggers. I bite back the sour reply I want to hurl at him—that maybe Wren is proud of me becoming a ruthless killer, just like her.